[I died is an answer she was anticipating and yet it hits her like a blow to the gut. Guilt that she'd already considered the possibility, sorrow that she was right. All at once she wishes she would have gone to have this conversation with Shiro in person – although maybe that would be worse. To look him in the eye while he talks so casually, and so bravely about his own death.

(There’s the detail about Black keeping is consciousness that sticks in her mind as something important. For more than just the obvious relief that Shiro is somewhere, somehow alive. It just hasn’t made it the rest of the way around to considering that the same could have happened to her father, or to Zarkon for that matter.)]

I’m sorry. [The words come out awkwardly, like she’s not sure what ones fit best here. A huff of breath as she recollects herself.] I don’t… There are still many mysteries surrounding the lions that even I don’t understand. But when I return. We will find a way to free you. One way or another.